Sunday, March 11, 2012

710. US Hands Off Syria! Victory to the Uprising!

For revolutionaries in the United States, there is no
question that our primary responsibility in regard to solidarity with the
workers and peasants of Syria is the need to organize against U.S.
intervention. No other task is so crucial to ensure self-determination so that
Syrians can win their battle for democracy, social justice, and genuine
independence. It is only within that context that revolutionaries can take the
next step and present to radicalizing workers in this country an analysis of
the roots and prospects of the Syrian uprising.

The Marxist method is predicated on what Marx liked to
call the "all-sidedness" of phenomena, the way in which all factors
bearing on a situation need to be taken into account, both in and of themselves
and in their interaction with each other. Nowhere is this method more needed
than in the current case of Syria. Even after clearing away the lies of regime
supporters and of the imperialists, the complex class structure of the country,
the manoeuvres of the regime at home and abroad, the diverse array of political
forces on both sides of the dispute (as well as straddling the fence) makes
facile sloganeering even more useless than normally.

We start from three basic premises in relation to the
uprising:

1) The economic exploitation of Syria's workers and
peasants by its ruling class, a class subservient to global capital, and the
horrific oppression and murderous policies of the Syrian regime to enforce that
exploitation, mean that we stand with the Syrian masses in their uprising
against the regime. We take note of their heroic steadfastness, repeatedly
mobilizing tens, often hundreds of thousands, despite the sure knowledge that
dozens will be shot dead each time they rally.

2) Syria today is ruled by a heinous dictatorship. The
defense of the Syrian people against that dictatorship must begin with
supporting their right to self-determination. This means that we oppose any and
all imperialist threats of intervention, blockades, embargoes, and sanctions,
not to mention the imposition of "no fly zones" or "humanitarian
corridors." The U.S. has no interest in the rights of the Syrian people,
and the results of any intervention can be foretold by looking at the horrific
misery now seen in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Haiti, and other countries where
"humanitarian" interventions have occurred. Our support for
self-determination gives us the standing to damn the Syrian dictatorship while
pointing to the only forces that can truly free Syria--the Syrian masses
themselves--forces organized independently of imperialism and its native
supporters inside Syria.

3) We support the self-organization of the Syrian masses
and encourage the revolutionary elements of the mass movement to build and
strengthen organs of mass mobilization and decision-making. We encourage the
formation of a revolutionary party to provide leadership and develop a program
that can reflect the wishes and needs of the masses, a program that channels
their potential to lead a successful revolution, and opposes both outside
intervention and the derailing or betrayal of the revolution by homegrown
bourgeois forces.

Revolutionary socialists support the right of the masses
and revolutionary groups to mobilize, and indeed, to arm themselves against
every dictatorship and especially against the well-armed Bashar al-Assad regime
of torture, detention, and murder. We encourage the mass organizations to turn
individual or small group defection into a consciously organized splitting of the
army, with radicalizing rank-and-file soldiers and lower-rank officers joining
neighborhood and workplace-based committees to form self-defense squads for the
revolution. These squads would unite not only to oppose the regime but also to
prevent the consolidation of the "Free Syrian Army" (FSA) as a tool
of imperialism, a goal being earnestly pursued by traitorous high-ranking
officers in cahoots with the U.S. government.

We also note that a central motivation of Washington's
desire to manage Assad's ouster either by diplomacy or by arms is to prevent
the anti-Zionist policy that would surely result from regime change resulting
from a popular uprising. For all of its rhetoric denouncing Assad's supposed
anti-imperialism and anti-Zionism, and complaints about his links to Iran,
Hezbollah, and Hamas, Washington knows that he (and his father) could be
trusted not to mount a serious challenge to the key U.S. ally in the region,
Israel. The Syrian regime even refused to try to reclaim the Golan Heights,
which Israel occupied in 1967.

Revolutionary socialists also stand for the right of
self-determination for Syria's Kurds, as we do in every country where this
oppressed nation is denied its rights. Our support for the right of
self-determination means that we leave it to the Kurdish nation to decide
whether they wish to remain within the state of Syria (and Turkey, Iraq, Iran),
or to set up a separate state.

In Syria, the Assad regime has repressed the Kurds and
engaged in ethnic cleansing in Kurdish areas. Tiny concessions by the regime in
the area of citizenship rights have not stopped Kurds from taking part in the
mass demonstrations.

And as in other countries with Kurdish minorities, we
note the danger of imperialist manipulation of their justifiable hatred of the
regime that oppresses them, and note that this is an opportunity for the
opposition to win the Kurds over politically by supporting the right of the
Kurds to self-determination--up to and including separation. In that sense, the
situation in Syria bears some resemblance to that of the Spanish Civil War when
the Republic had an opportunity--one unfortunately neglected, given its
bourgeois leadership--to paralyze the fascist forces by granting Moroccans the
right to self-determination.

Foreign intervention

The Syrian uprising originated in the same interaction
of resentment at economic suffering, and at tyranny imposed brutally to prevent
revolt against such exploitation and inequity, as has been seen throughout the
Middle East and North Africa.

Anyone with the slightest familiarity with the economic
policies of the U.S. and European ruling classes, and their enforcement of
IMF-dictated poverty and austerity programs around the world, would realize
that Assad's neoliberal economic policies are perfectly fine with the West--as
is the dictatorship used to enforce it. Yet Washington and its allies obviously
consider that there would be advantages in putting an end to the Assad regime.
As in Libya, what the imperialists desire is not jobs or justice for the masses
but an opportunity to get more "boots on the ground" in a region rife
with revolution since the revolts in Tunisia and Egypt broke out. In this they
are wholeheartedly supported by their favorite client regimes in the Gulf Cooperation
Council--i.e., Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Bahrain, etc.

Imperialism also gains some advantage by the fall of a
regime in Syria, which, like other right-wing populist regimes in the region,
has specialized in anti-imperialist and Zionist rhetoric, and even occasionally
provided material support to carefully selected resistance groups. Such aid has
been given with strings attached, of course, to ensure that resistance groups
limit themselves to isolated attacks divorced from the kind of mass
mobilization that would not only threaten imperialist and Zionist interests but
those of the Syrian and similar regimes as well. Such "resistance"
credentials, which have fooled all too many middle-class and Stalinist
observers from afar, are but a cruelly duplicitous vestige of mass upheavals
from the 1950s and 1960s, upheavals prevented from reaching consummation in
full-blown revolutions by the seizure of power of such tyrants as Assad's
father.

Nor do Russia and China, which fund and supply Assad and
are providing his main diplomatic cover, have any more interest in the rights
and needs of the Syrian masses than Washington and its allies. They too are simply
maneuvering for power, influence, and resources.

The danger of open, full-scale military intervention, as
manifested in threats from Washington and its allies and puppets, has grown
sharply in recent weeks, so much so that most observers expected the result of
the Feb. 24 conference of "Friends of Syria" to be a bloodthirsty
threat of armed force against the regime. These "Friends" include all
the major imperialist powers, one of whom, France, has been pushing for weeks
for the creation of "humanitarian corridors," i.e., areas of Syria to
be conquered by troops from imperialist countries and/or from client regimes in
the Gulf, ostensibly to allow free passage of food and medicine, but obviously
designed to allow an imperialist army with a thin cover of "Free Syria
Army" officership to roll into Damascus.

The traitorous heads of the Syrian National Council and
the FSA went to Tunis to try to convince U.S. Secretary of State Hillary
Clinton and her ilk to invade and to recognize them as the "legitimate"
leaders of the country. In these maneuvers, the "Friends" and their
quisling allies have been greatly aided on the diplomatic front by the Arab
League, the council for region regime heads.

But in the event, Washington was resigned to a final
declaration from Tunis simply repeating its demand that Assad stop firing on
his citizens and allow aid and medical relief into the country. In both an
editorial and a news article the day after the conference, The New York Times
claimed that both Washington and its allies "have ruled out military
intervention."

A post-conference analysis by Egyptian Nasserist
politician Abdelhalim Qandil claimed that the U.S. "may even prefer the
situation as it is: the Arab Syrian army worn out in a bloody war against the
people. And the Syrian regime challenged and undermined, but not overthrown,
because the West does not know exactly where Syria would be going after
Bashar." Qandil noted correctly that "the first to benefit from the
demand for a foreign intervention is Bashar's regime itself. An intervention
harms the cause of the revolution and stains the reputation of its
supporters."

It's not yet clear whether Washington's relative
rhetorical restraint in Tunis was simply cover for an inevitable military
assault, or instead a genuine reflection of the strategic difficulties it faces
given Russian and Chinese opposition and its own difficulties in ongoing wars
elsewhere, current or pending. Naturally, opponents of war against Syria cannot
afford to count on the latter.

Certainly, the U.S. government would love to have its
hands free for an armed intervention--especially as the uprising is beginning
to secure a permanent presence in the city's major cities. The weekend before
the Tunis conference, hundreds of thousands mobilized in Damascus for the
funeral of a man killed by the regime. It is just this type of mobilization,
which if prolonged will mean the certain death of the regime at the hands of
the masses, that Washington hopes to forestall in favor of a "controlled"
change of regime that securely places its puppets in power.

The need for intervention in Washington's eyes is
heightened by the fragmented and undependable state of the FSA. Rather than a
coherent, disciplined fighting force, The Wall Street Journal noted, "Syria's
armed rebels appear to have only nominal unity under the umbrella of the
so-called Free Syrian Army. Last year in Libya, by contrast, rebel fighters
appeared to answer more directly to that country's National Transitional
Council.

"Though the FSA says it represents a mushrooming
group of defected soldiers, opposition activists concede that several armed
fighters--including local militias--are aligning with the dissident army by
name only." An SNC spokesperson admitted to The Journal that it needed
help "to focus on reining in armed factions under the umbrella of the FSA.
The responsibility of the SNC is to ensure that the groups on the ground are
connected with each other and come under an integrated command."

In a similar vein, on the eve of the Tunis conference, The
New York Times ended an article on divisions in the opposition by noting
that "exiled Syrian Army officers who formed the Free Syrian Army, based
in Turkey, have stayed aloof from the council, and even they do not really
control the many local militias that adopt the army's name alone."

And in Al Jazeera, Nir Rosen, who has interviewed
armed anti-Assad forces, noted in mid-February that there is "no central
or unified leadership for the armed revolution." The FSA, he claims, is a
name endorsed by "diverse armed opposition actors throughout the country,
who each operate in a similar manner and towards a similar goal, but each with
local leadership. Local armed groups have only limited communication with those
in neighboring towns or provinces--and, moreover, they were operating long
before the summer" when the mainstream media began to claim that the FSA
was becoming a significant force and that defections from Assad's army were
swelling.

Rosen claims that the armed fighters are not Salafis or
members of the Muslim Brotherhood or al-Qaeda. They are devout, he says, but
are fighting to defend their friends, their neighborhoods, villages or
province. "Salafi and Muslim Brotherhood ideologies are not important in
Syria and do not play a significant role in the revolution," he claims.

Conflicting reports about the respective armed strengths
and presence on the ground of the military forces of the regime, the
opposition, and of external powers can be seen in a Feb. 9 report by Voice
of Russia radio examining claims by the Israel-based Debka Report. Debka
had claimed that Qatari and British special forces were already aiding Syrian
rebels. The VR account detailed claims, counterclaims, rebuttals and denials by
all parties to the conflict about the presence of such forces, and noted the
possibility that the claims were misinformation spread by the regime to excuse
its poor military performance, or alternatively, were perhaps spread by the
imperialist powers to justify more massive intervention.

Debka had even upped the ante by claiming that the
presence of foreign special forces in Syria--and not just from Qatar and the
UK, but from Israel, the U.S., and France as well--is an "open
secret" and that they've been there since August of last year.

The political constellation of the opposition

The diversity of the FSA is a reflection of an even more
diverse array of forces in the opposition, both internal and in exile. While
the mainstream media's claims that the internal opposition is dominated by the
Muslim Brotherhood seem unfounded (especially as it has had little
organizational presence inside the country since the 1982 Massacre in Hama),
the Brotherhood does seem to be the largest force in the mostly-expatriate
Syrian National Council.

But it must also be kept in mind that just as claims of
"Islamist" domination of Egypt's revolution were designed to oppose
its progress, in Syria such claims (including allegations that al-Qaeda has a
presence) are used to justify outside intervention. What's more, such claims
parrot those of Assad, who has stepped up the policies initiated by his father
of divide and conquer, pitting all the country's sects and religions against
each other--policies which led the Local Coordinating Committees (LCCs) from
the start to stress their nonsectarian character. Of course, the longer the
conflict drags on, the greater the danger of real sectarian divisions appearing
(which, as in Iraq, would suit Washington just fine).

Inside Syria the repeated mobilizations, and material,
medical, and self-defense support for them, are still in the hands of the LCCs,
which, while they are in informal contact with each other, have yet to produce
a national structure, much less speak with one political voice.

In a Nov. 2 statement the LCCs stated their opposition
to outside intervention, a policy that apparently has not been dropped. (In
contrast, at a talk on Feb. 22 at Columbia University, a representative of the
Network of Arab-American Professionals claimed--in language eerily reminiscent
of the rhetoric before the invasion of Libya--that grassroots forces inside
Syria were clamoring for the SNC to secure imperialist intervention. The NAAP
rep further justified such calls by denouncing the alleged presence of Russian
and Iranian forces in Syria and their material aid to the regime and its
military.)

There is also some presence of the revolutionary left
inside the country, including Trotskyists as well as ex-Maoists, but it is
unclear how big or influential such revolutionary forces are. One group from
this milieu, the Syrian Revolutionary Left Tendency, whose declared purpose is
to unite such forces, issued a statement in December 2011 hailing the call for
a general strike. The Tendency called for the strike to be the occasion for
unifying all opposition forces in action committees and noted: "The future
of our people and of its country can only be decided on by the masses of our
country. The mass general strike will lead there."

The Tendency also counterposed such unified organizing
to outside intervention, ending its appeal with the slogan, "Long live the
Arab permanent popular revolutions!"--the very thing that Washington and
its allies and clients fear most.

Can one be against intervention and for the uprising?

Repeating their stance vis-à-vis Iran, Iraq and Libya,
some on the left in the U.S. have claimed that opposition to Washington's war
drive against Syria requires silence about, or even denial of, the crimes of
Assad. This stance has been eloquently refuted by progressive Arab authors and
activists and by the Arab masses themselves in pro-uprising rallies throughout
the region.

Bassam Haddad, in his jadaliyya.com column, "An Idiot's Guide
to Fighting Dictatorship in Syria while Opposing Military Intervention,"
wrote that claims that opposition to the regime reflects "outside
interests" are "empty and an insult to our intelligence." He
noted that calls for intervention came mostly from outside forces such as the
SNC, not those inside Syria. Haddad recounted the presence of Syrian flags in
Egypt's Tahrir Square during the one-year anniversary rallies on Jan. 25--flown
to indicate support for the uprising.

In an interview with International Viewpoint, radical
economist and activist Adam Hanieh stated that "in the case of Syria, it
is clear that the Western states, Israel, and the Gulf countries want to see a
more pliant regime, and this is partially motivated by a desire to undermine
Iran's regional influence (connected of course to Hizbullah in Lebanon)."

But he added, "The overall anti-imperialist
sentiment remains strong among the Syrian population and the attempts by parts
of the Left to smear the entire uprising as a stand-in for imperialism belies a
Manichean worldview that badly misunderstands the country's history. I don't
see any contradiction in opposing intervention and simultaneously being against
the Assad regime--which, we need to remember, has embraced neoliberalism and
consistently used a rhetoric of `anti-imperialism' to obfuscate a practice of
accommodation with both the US and Israel."

Another eloquent voice against such Manichean (or what
we today call "campist") worldviews is Columbia University Professor
Joseph Massad, who in his Al Jazeera column, "Imperialism, despotism, and
democracy in Syria," wrote: "Like Saddam, the Assad dynastic regime
has been an ally of the Saudi theocracy and its junior Gulf partners, and an
agent of U.S. imperialism in the region, especially in its major intervention
in Lebanon in 1976 at the invitation of the Christian fascist forces who called
the Syrians in to help them crush the leftist revolutionary movement in the
country, including the PLO. … Moreover, the Assad regime again proved most
helpful to its U.S. and Saudi sponsors when it joined the imperial coalition to
invade the Gulf in 1990-91 under the U.S. flag. On the Zionist front, the
Syrian regime proved as pliant as the Jordanian one, ensuring the security of
Israel's "borders," which Israel conquered and established inside
Syria's and Jordan's own territories.

Socialist Action could not agree more with those who, while
mobilizing in broad united coalitions against imperialist intervention, look
eagerly toward a revolution by Syria's workers, peasants, students, and women.
Without a revolution that puts political and economic power firmly within the
hands of Syria's working people, building a genuinely anti-imperialist,
pro-social justice society is impossible.